Mid-Ocean Poem by Emily Pfeiffer

WILD fields of Ocean, piling heap on heap
Thy mountainous wealth of water, but to fling
Abroad in spendthrift haste, still gathering
And scattering to the winds what none would keep;
Thou canst not know so sweet a thing as sleep
For all thy toil, nor hope whereto to cling,—
Ploughed by the winds in one unending spring—
What harvest of the storm hast thou to reap?

My spirit owns, but will not bend before
This dull brute might and purposeless, of thine;
The sea-bird resting on thy wave is more
Than thou, by all its faculty divine
To suffer; pang is none in this thy roar,
And all the joy that lifts thy wave, is mine!